Tag Archives: soup

On nights when I don’t cook, we have a few go-to take-out places. There is the obligatory pizza and Chinese take-out, but bf and I are also obsessed with Pho (pronounced like football without the “tball”. It’s actually sort of a mix of foo and “ooo” but it’s a sound that most English speakers can’t pronounce because they didn’t learn it from a young age. It is, under no circumstances, pronounced “faux”) Sorry for that rant, it’s a major pet peeve of mine. Pho is a Vietnamese soup with beef, noodles and a beef broth. We originally learned about it thanks to our wonderful friend Dan. We are actually fortunate enoughto have two great Vietnamese restaurants nearby, but I prefer the one with stronger broth. It’s super filling and a great meal for a cold night, a sick night or anything in between :). If you haven’t tried it, you definitely should! I did for the first time in June and I’ve never looked back!

The broth comes in a container like this.

Then you get a container of noodles, beef, and some veggies. I keep in the parsley and some of the green onions, but I take out the white onions because they are too crunchy for my taste. I like my soup without a whole lot of crunch.

You also get a bag of bean sprouts, basil and some sriracha and hoisin sauce mixed together. I leave out all of these things (yes I know you will be outraged Dan). The sriracha and hoisin mix is way to spicey for me. One drop and my mouth burns for hours. But I’m a total wuss and bf won’t have pho without it. The basil is totally a preference thing and the sprouts are too crunchy for me. Yeah, I’m weird, I know.

I start by putting the meat and noodles in a big bowl and then pouring the broth into the bowl over the top. Using the chopsticks, I break up the noodles and then I enjoy. There is no graceful or right way to eat Pho, you just have to figure out how it works best for you!

Sunday was cloudy, blustery and stormy. Not to mention dark. Like black all day dark. So obviously, soup was the perfect dinner plan. I still have lots of those amazing soup mixes, so I decided to try a sausage and lentil option. I thought it really wasn’t fair to keep raving about these soups without giving you guys more details, or even better, a place to buy them! I found the website, it’s www.frontiersoups.com and this soup was the one I made the other night. Yay! Oh and just for the record, Frontier Soups has no idea who I am and I am not getting endorsed for this post in any way. I just happened to find these soups and love them!

This is what my mix looked like. It had about 1.5-2 cups of brown and orange lentils. The vegetable packet contained dried carrots, celery, onions, spices and paprika. As you will see I also added broth, sausage, zucchini, diced tomatoes and red wine.

I started by removing the meat from the sausage casings and then browning the meat in a large pot.

I then added the spice and veggie packet and mixed everything together.

I then added the broth (12 cups) and simmered covered for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I added the 3 medium-sized chopped zucchinis and simmered for another 30 minutes.

Next, I added the tomatoes ( a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes) and wine (1 cup red) and simmered for another 30 minutes (uncovered this time). Note to self: when making this soup again in the future, use a larger pot.

When it was all done, I served the soup in two heaping bowls with some Parmesan cheese. The apartment smelled absolutely amazing and the soup was hardy and delicious!

Sunday nights are always very bittersweet for me. I love how relaxing and low key they are, but at the same time, I’m usually pretty bummed that the weekend is over. Weekends always seem to go so fast!!!! Add a storm that’s brewing with thunder and lightening and you have the perfect recipe for comfort soup. This recipe is a real winner. I cannot say enough about it. Bf even said “this is my new favorite”. While we frequently joke that he says that all the time, this time it was with complete seriousness! So you should definitely give it a try!

To begin the preparations, I started by cooking the rice. Now I must confess. I made a really silly mistake. I read the recipe as 3 cups rice rather than cooked rice. Which really doesn’t make much sense now that I think about it. But anyway, I have lots of extra rice. Stayed tuned to see what I do with it.

I also boiled two small chicken breasts and then cut them into bite size pieces.

I also, chopped up the carrots, celery and onion. I then cooked them with a little margarine until the veggies were tender.

Next, I added the flour and stirred a few times so that the flour would absorb the liquid.

I slowly added the chicken broth, a big pour at a time, stirred until the broth thickened, then repeated!

Then, I added the rice, chicken, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. I let the soup come to a boil and cook for about five minutes until the broth thickened again.

Next, I added the milk and stirred everything together.

Once the soup was heated through, I served it in bowls with….

biscuits! I must confess, I used a baking mix. But they turned out great and I really didn’t have time to do the soup and the biscuits from scratch. Either way it was a delicious dinner!

I visited my family and my future grad school this weekend. I spent a total of 12 hours on the airplane and 4.5 hours in the airport. I was visiting my mom who is sick and leaving behind a boss who is sick. Me getting sick was inevitable. Even if I expected it, I don’t like it. Not one bit. So I made soup.

I have a new friend who just so happens to also have a food blog. Her’s in infinitely more professional, but she’s had hers for longer, so I can just hope to be as success as her one day. In my never-ending search for recipes I found this soup and it seemed perfect for a sick night. It was delicious and really pretty easy to make. It also makes a ton and is made of mostly common ingredients in your pantry, so it’s definitely something I’d recommend!

6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3 carrots, diced
5 celery stalks, diced
2 quarts water (I just made sure the pot was about half full before adding the veggies)
1/2 onion, or full onion if small
6 T. margarine
6 T. flour (any kind will do, I used whole wheat)
2 tsp. or more of salt
1 tsp. pepper

1.5 cups milk

First, I started to heat up the pot of water. While it was coming to a boil, I peeled the potatoes then diced them, along with the carrots and the celery.

Once the water boiled, I dumped all of the veggies into the pot and cooked for twenty minutes. Depending on the size of the potato chunks, next time I would have cooked them about five minutes longer.

While the veggies were cooking, I chopped up the onion. Then I cooked the onion in the margarine until the onion was softened. I know it looks like a lot of margarine, but it does cook down and it’s what makes the paste for the soup. Also, keep in mind it’s way better than butter.

Once the onions were softened, I added the flour, salt and pepper and stirred it all together.

Then, I slowly added the milk, a little pour at a time, stirring constantly to make sure none of it burned. The process takes a little while, but the mix will get nice and creamy. This picture is when I had poured in about 1/2 a cup of milk.

This is what my paste looked like when all the mix had been added. Much better, right?

When the paste, for lack of a better word, was about half done, so too were the veggies. I drained them into the strainer with a large bowl below to catch the cooking water.

Then I added the veggies back to the large pot, added the paste and stirred everything together.

With the stove still on low heat, I slowly added the cooking water about a 1/4 cup at a time. I stirred everything together, then would add another 1/4 cup of liquid. This picture was when I was about 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup in.

After about 1.5-1.75 cups of liquid, the soup was at the consistency I wanted. It’s totally up to you and also depends on how many potatoes you put into the mix. I added some extra salt to my bowl when I was done, but that is also a personal choice. It was exactly what the doctor ordered for this sick girl.

So you know what they say about best laid plans? Well actually, I’m notorious for screwing up common phrases so insert your own cliche here_____. For example, the two common phrases “that’s just how the cookie crumbles” and “how the cards fall”. My version “that’s just how the cookie falls”. Or, I like to add emphasis. So I would say “a very very blue moon”. Drives bf nuts. Yeah I know, embarrassing. I like to think of it as endearing. So anyway, my meat for the yummy burgers I was going to make on Friday was grey. Not moldy, just grey. And it totally creeped me out. So we opted for Thai takeout. Then after a long day Saturday watching the bf compete, pizza was my meal of choice. Basically, I failed as a cook this week.

Last night, I finally kicked my bum into shape. Several weeks ago, my mom sent me some pre-packaged soup mixes from a fancy grocery store in California. I gave this one a shot last night. It was amazingly delicious. I know it looks paltry and feeble and not at all hearty. Well the veggies, rice and pasta really stepped up and made the soup very robust.

First, I chopped the onion and bf cut up the chicken. I then cooked it in a bit of olive oil until the chicken was cooked through.

Then I added the rice/veggie mix, the chicken broth and the water. I brought everything to a boil, then simmered with the lid on for 30 minutes.

Next, I added the pasta and cooked for another 8-10 minutes.

While the pasta was softening, I mixed together the soup base and a few tablespoons of water.

After the pasta cooked, I added the soup base and let everything simmer together for a few more minutes.

I then served two big bowls of piping hot soup (and added ice cubes because bf and I are terrible about burning our tongues) and enjoyed. I wish I had some bread to serve on the side, but I guess it was healthier this way!

I have been a very absent and negligent blog host. For this I apologize. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be consistent with my posting. I am also going to try to up my yoga practice. (This shouldn’t be that hard as I am BARELY doing it at all now). What are some of your resolutions?

Part of the reason I’ve had difficulty posting regularly lately is my dwindling supply of new recipes. I am cooking regularly, but most of my stuff you’ve already seen. So, I have a favor to ask. Please please please share some recipes with me, and if you are willing, the other readers. I will try them out and let you know how it goes!

But for now, I do have a few left, including this wonderful soup. I have some great soup recipes (like my tortellini, sausage, kale and cannellini bean soup), but usually I already have a recipe. I don’t have much success just making soup from scratch. It’s something I’m working on. In the mean time, I found this vegetable soup. I could eat soup almost every day, but my bf isn’t always a huge fan of veggie soup. This one was a hit however. The recipe calls for pancetta, although I used turkey bacon. There isn’t a whole lot of it in the soup but it does provide some heartiness to the recipe. There is also about a ton of vegetables so it’s super healthy. Here is the recipe: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000000399190

I always read the entire recipe before I begin and I noticed that part way through this soup you are supposed to add seven ingredients at once. These ingredients also happened to require a huge amount of cutting, shopping, and preparing of all sorts. So I prepared by peeling and cutting the squash and potatoes, chopping the carrots and celery, then adding the cinnamon, thyme and dried basil.

Then I cut up the turkey bacon. I heated up the olive oil, added the bacon and cooked for about three minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the bacon was cooking, I chopped up the onion and garlic and then added to the pot. I cooked the mix for another three minutes.

I then added the tomatoes. Confession: I was supposed to add the vegetables and cook for six minutes and then add the tomatoes and cook for two. But I got distracted and added the tomatoes first.

So I added the rest of the veggies and cooked the whole thing for eight minutes. It turned out just fine in the long run. A quick note: the recipe calls for whole canned tomatoes which you drain and chop. While I think the draining is a good idea, make sure you keep the juices from inside the tomatoes, the extra liquid is good.

I then added the broth, brought it to a boil, turned down the heat, then let it simmer for a little while. I actually added a little extra broth because I used extra veggies. For example, the recipe calls for a half a cup of celery, but when I was at a half cup I still had 3/4 of a stalk left. Same with the carrots, potatoes and squash.

After simmering for a little while, I added the kale and simmered for another five minutes. I had to stir and push down the kale for the first two minutes or so until it softens and begins to reduce.

I then added the beans, which I had drained and rinsed, and simmered for another four minutes.

I then served two big bowls and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. It was a perfect winter dinner, I definitely recommend it!